Monday, February 10, 2014

Arguing 24 hour days in Genesis is hardly necessary - the text doesn't just say day - it specifies the kind of day - the kind with evening and morning. It's not so much a question of arguing as just basic reading comprehension.

I posted the above on Facebook recently, and got some objections. I've posted the objections with my responses. I've tried to use some color coding to help highlight what words came from the objectors, although I've taken a little bit of liberty in terms of simplify, rewording, or omitting portions of the objections. I have not named the objectors, but would be happy to do so, if either of them wants to be named.

An objector might respond that the text specifies the pattern of the day but uses the evening and morning pattern, not the hour by hour pattern.

The value of this objection is low. If the objector's point is that a day could have been 25 hours or 23.5 hours - and didn't have to be precisely 24 hours - fine. But if the point is that "day" could have meant a billion years - that's an entirely different thing. Such a meaning for "day" is totally unreasonable.

The objector may respond that the argument is overstated in the sense that there is no way one can prove the 24hr day theory from the text.

Nevertheless, the text says day. Moreover, the text specifies the morning/evening kind of day. That kind of day is approximately 24 hours long. It's hard to see what could possibly be missing in that proof.

The objector may respond "That kind of day is approximately 24 hours long" is a scientific assumption you are reading back into the text. It assumes that the days as we observe today are exactly the same as the days of Genesis.

But no, it is not a "scientific" assumption. Instead, it is the plain meaning of "evening/morning" to the Israelites to whom God through Moses wrote the text. In other words, the only way to try to poke a hole in the argument is to throw out grammatical/historical hermeneutics.

Another objector might respond that the method I just mentioned is exactly what I am suggesting we do with our current Scientific understandings.

Instead, I am just suggesting that the assumption of indefinite uniformity in the past is unjustified.

In response to "No, it's not a "scientific" assumption - it's the plain meaning of "evening/morning"" the first objector may respond that this is exactly the same prima facie proofing dispensationalists use for their eschatological theories. No one reads scripture in the sense of a strict grammarian, there are more factors that are involved in reading the text.

First, the only reason for not reading it according to the plain meaning is a desire to harmonize it with some ideas the objector got outside the text. Furthermore, there is no need to falsely associate my objector's view with someone else to point out that error.

Now, regarding dispensationalists and some of their interpretations - typically those errors the objector is pointing out arise in the context of trying interpret prophecy: statements about future events. That's a different genre from history. IF(!) dispesnationalists apply the same kind of interpretation to prophetic passages as to historical passages, it is no surprise that they have errors.

The objector may respond that he is just pointing out the methodological approaches to reading scripture. Appeals to a "plain sense" reading are similar to the arguments heard from dispensationalists. It doesn't mean the argument is invalid, it just means that particular methodology needs to be avoided.

Of course, the fact that people who come to wrong conclusions (let's just assume they do, to avoid turning this into an eschatology discussion) sometimes use a specific form of argument does not make that argument wrong or suggest that the form of argument should be avoided.

Still, the objector may ask about "The plain sense of x": What do you mean "plain sense"?

What I mean is not some secret meaning, like in a parable or prophecy; nor some specialized technical meaning, like in some detailed discussions of theology or other technical writing. It's the ordinary meaning people normally associate with the word.

So, for example, when God says he made Eve from Adam's rib, rib means one of those bones around Adam's lungs: it is not a code word for something else. On the other hand, when God speaks of the "Lion of the Tribe of Judah," that's a prophetic reference to Jesus. Different genres, different ways of looking at words.

The objector may then ask: would you argue that because Genesis 1-3 is describing events that are historical, that there are no other literary elements at work? The text is giving us a history, but it isn't doing just that, nor is it doing it strictly chronological (more emphasis on the word strictly). It is providing us a theological understanding of the beginning of the universe, the world, and mankind.

You can have multiple literary elements at work in a single writing. For example, the gospels and Acts are historical accounts, but they are also providing a theological understanding of redemption, of Christology, and so on. We don't hold the third day resurrection as being somehow doubtful, just because there are other purposes to the gospels than just to provide history. So, we also shouldn't hold the sixth day Creation of man to be doubtful just because the purpose of Genesis is not just to provide history.

Now, if your point is that Genesis 1-3 is not "strictly" chronological, because after Genesis 1 describes the 6th day closing, Genesis 2 then provides more detail about the 6th day, ok. Likewise, if you are pointing out that God says first that "in the beginning" God created the heavens and the earth, before then explaining the day-by-day events of that, ok. In both cases, that's a departure from strict chronology. But Genesis 1 does present a sequence of events that are described as occurring chronologically, with explicit relative and absolute chronological references.

And recall that while much of the Pentateuch was Moses writing under inspiration, there is a section where God himself wrote the text, in his own hand, in stone. There he wrote: "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is ... ."

The objector may respond that Ken Ham demonstrates that YECers rely on scientific models, so it's a bit odd to attribute that conclusion to OEC speculation.

They rely on scientific models in different ways, as Ken Ham also explained during the debate. For example, scientific models are sometimes offered to hypothesize how people lived such enormous lengths of time before the flood, or how the animals dispersed to places like Antarctica, South America, and Australia.

The objector may respond that it's quite a stretch to absolve Ham from placing how he reads on his scientific understandings, it would be a double standard. It all comes down to "Well since I agree with YEC, then Ham gets off the hook".

Maybe the objector thinks it is a stretch because he has overlooked that Ham's starting point is the text of Scripture, whereas for others the starting point is backwards extrapolation with a variety of assumptions, especially the assumption of indefinite uniformity.

The objector may respond that Ham asserts that his starting point is the text of scripture, but that's a verbal fiat. It doesn't carry over into all of his argumentation consistently.

He does, in fact, start with the text of Scripture. Now, if you are saying that at some points in his arguments he loses track of that starting point - ok - but that doesn't change his starting point, it just leaves room for improvement in his argument.

14 comments:

Anyone out there considered Sailhammer's "historical creationism" that allows you to have your cake (24 hour "days") and eat it too (A universe and earth as old as mainstream science says there are)?

I'm intrigued by the theory (see his "Genesis Unbound") because it allows for the "plain" reading of the text (i.e. regular, 24-hour days) and the "plain" reading of the natural evidence for an old earth (which is overwhelming, in my opinion).

Also, no offense intended, but the suggestion that the laws of physics were somehow different "back then" reeks of special pleading for young earth creationism.

I'd at least need some level of justification for a non-uniformitarian reading of the natural evidence that is as strong as the natural evidence we do have.

But the only thing I've seen to justify the assumption that the "rules" may have been different "back then" seems to be driven entirely by antecedent assumptions of a young earth, which in turn is based entirely on the assumption that Genesis 1:2ff is a chronological account of when and how God created the entire universe.

That's precisely the assumption that Sailhammer goes after, and if he's right (or at least on to something), then the entire need to reconcile 6 creation days with the book of nature goes out the window since, Genesis 1:1 simple tells us that at some indeterminate time called "beginning" (reshit, in Hebrew), God created the entire universe.

Moses simply does not comment on how long the "reshit" was in terms of earth days or years.

So then what do days 1-6 refer to? They refer to the time God took to first arrange (not "create" Hebrew, bara) the Garden of Eden (a precursor to the Promised Land) and then populate it in preparation for the arrival of man.

Think of it as 6 days to "fine tune" the already-existing "land" (eretz, in Hebrew, which almost always refers to a specific parcel of land rather than the entire planet), in order to dwell in it, temple-like with his people.

Note well: This is not the progressive, day-age creationism of Reasons to Believe. Sailhammer is not suggesting for a minute that Moses would have seriously expected his reader to understand the word "day" (with the added "morning and evening") to refer to six "ages" consisting of possibly millions of years, and neither am I.

Sailhammer instead moves the "gap" to Genesis 1:1, where the "reshit" refers to that undetermined time before time, just as it often did in the rule of an Israelite king before he officially took office on 1 Nissan, even if, de facto, he had started reigning months and even years before his inauguration date.

Anyway--it's an intriguing theory, especially if you're committed to the principle that scripture does not contradict science and vice versa.

The "laws of physics" are no more than the discernible pattern of normal providence. (Gen 8:22) Normal providence didn't become fully normal until the completion of the God's work of creation. So it's not really special pleading. We have a disagreement on the definition of "laws of physics"

Secondly, the gap theory by another other name is still the gap theory. Doesn't matter where you put the gap.

Lastly, to speak of time before time. is nonsense. One important thing that b'reshit is teaching is that time is part of creation. It is the absolute start of the clock, there was evening, and then once God said "Let there be light" there was morning. In the beginning, the initial condition was darkness. Then God created light, and it was morning. He called the darkness night and the light day. As he said, there was evening there was morning day one.

The issue is not between Scripture and science, but between Scripture and scientists, and scientism. The rocks don't claim to be any particular age, but it's scientists that do. The photons of starlight don't have anything at identifies them as being in transit for any length of time, its scientists that do.

It's not only Genesis 1, but Exodus 20:11 that bounds the entire time span from b'reshit to God's resting at 6 days. That's non-negotiable.

Anything besides that is to read scripture through lens of God's enemies. (Any Christian that denies 6x24 creation is at enmity with God on that subject) To argue anything other is to argue as the serpent in the garden, "Yeah hath God said..."

Creation definitely does contradict science, in a similar way to the way in which the Resurrection and the Virgin Birth contradict science - i.e. the assumption that there has been indefinite uniformity, especially as to what we view as natural laws. Miracles are not part of the natural order. God speaking and bringing things into existence is not part of a uniform natural process extending back indefinitely for eons.

Likewise, in particular, Adam being formed from the dust and Eve being formed from Adam's rib, both don't harmonize with the assumptions of indefinite uniformity.

These ideas of trying to squeeze a gap into Genesis 1 are usually done to try to accommodate some idea that came from outside the text. However, they don't really accommodate it and they are bad exegesis.

As to how they don't accommodate it - if you put a gap of 13 billion years before day one of the six days, you may have a very old earth, but it won't be the very old earth described by reverse extrapolation from where we are now back to a big bang 13 billion years ago.

You need to realize that the World was created by God as God says, not by some gradual natural process.

Andrew Duggan>>The "laws of physics" are no more than the discernible pattern of normal providence. (Gen 8:22) Normal providence didn't become fully normal until the completion of the God's work of creation. So it's not really special pleading. We have a disagreement on the definition of "laws of physics"<<

Right. My apriori here is that the book of nature (rightly read), isn't going to give us one age for the universe while the book of God (scripture) is giving us an entirely different age. I simply hold as axiomatic that the author of both books (God) does not contradict himself.

>>Secondly, the gap theory by another other name is still the gap theory. Doesn't matter where you put the gap.<<

Which apparently must be wrong simply because it's a "gap theory?"

>>Lastly, to speak of time before time. is nonsense.<<

An unfortunate choice of words on my part. I was trying to get across Sailhammer's understanding of "reshit," and perhaps my "time before time" analogy is more unlike the "reshit" than like it.

>>One important thing that b'reshit is teaching is that time is part of creation. It is the absolute start of the clock, there was evening, and then once God said "Let there be light" there was morning.<<

Yes, time is itself a creation of God. But whether or not "there was morning and evening" belong to the "reshit" is precisely the issue at hand. Sailhammer would say the "reshit" is indeterminate. That does not mean there was no "start." There was. God started to create and finished creating "the heavens and the earth" (Here, a merism for the entire universe, including time) during an indeterminate period called "reshit."

We are simply not told how long the reshit lasted (so, Sailhammer).

>>In the beginning, the initial condition was darkness. Then God created light, and it was morning. He called the darkness night and the light day. As he said, there was evening there was morning day one.<<

Sailhammer would say that everything in the universe was created in Genesis 1:1, but that everything mentioned from 1:2 to 2:4 is about the "land" (eretz), not the entire universe.

If he's right, then I can say that the sun actually existed before the earth (which makes sense, not only from the point of view of astronomy, but also from phenomenology, as it indeed does "appear" that in order to have light, we first need a source for that light--i.e., sun, moon and stars.) It would seem that other views would have to posit a different source for the "light" since our normal sources for it were not created until day 4.

>>The issue is not between Scripture and science, but between Scripture and scientists, and scientism. The rocks don't claim to be any particular age, but it's scientists that do....<<

I disagree. The heavens declare the glory of God, and also seem to be giving us pretty concrete testimony for a very old universe. But of course, nothing "says" anything until we read it, not even scripture. So I guess it really comes down to our exegesis of both books--the book of scripture and nature.

You see scientists and biblical exegetes as giving us competing narratives for our origins. If Sailhammer's theory is correct, then there is no necessary conflict between these narratives.

>>It's not only Genesis 1, but Exodus 20:11 that bounds the entire time span from b'reshit to God's resting at 6 days. That's non-negotiable.<<

Sailhammer has a very convincing explanation of Exodus 20:11 and how it fits in with his theory. I'll probably need another com-box to do it any justice...

If I were to give up on Sailhammer's theory, it would be because he has no way to square Exodus 20:11 with the rest of his theory. After all, it does appear that this verse is saying Genesis 1:1 did take six days.

Sailhammer's explanation can be summarized as follows:

1. The merism, "the heavens and the earth" describe not Genesis 1:1, but rather Genesis 1:2-2:4, which means Moses is still talking about the "six days" it took God to arrange (not create) the original Promised Land.

2. Exodus does not tell us how long God took to create the universe; rather it tells us that God made three things in six days--the heavens, earth and sea, and in the remaining three days, he populated these three realms.

3. The scope of Exodus concerns the preparation of a specific land, not the creation of the universe. This land (eretz) is in fact the original Promised Land. Confirmation for this is found in the next verse in which we are given the commandment: "Honor your father and mother so that you may live long in *the land*".

Compare this to Jeremiah 27:5, which also seems to be about the Promised Land, rather than the entire universe.

Well, that just about does it. It's not as if Sailhammer utterly missed Exodus 20:11. I am persuaded that his exegesis holds up to scrutiny, though that doesn't mean he's right.

Which brings me to my original question. Has anyone actually read or interacted with his theory?

I ask because the Evangelical world seems to think it has only two viable options: AIG-style young earth creationism OR RTB-style old earth creationism.

But what if there is a viable tertium quid that doesn't force into polarized camps?

Anyway, like I said, it's an intriguing theory that I can hardly do justice to in a com box.

You see scientists and biblical exegetes as giving us competing narratives for our origins. If Sailhammer's theory is correct, then there is no necessary conflict between these narratives.

No, I don't see biblical exegetes giving a narrative for our origins. My authority is God, speaking through the Scriptures. That's the difference. It is one of the Solas of the Reformation. (WCF 1)

I could restate the particulars, but that is pointless. You need to take God at his Word. For how to deal with natural vs special revelation, you need to read and sing Psalm 19, until you get it. You can be sure you still haven't gotten it as long as you continue to reject 6x24 creation as taught in Genesis and Exodus 20:11.

Sailhammer has a very convincing explanation of Exodus 20:11 and how it fits in with his theory.

As convincing as the serpent in the garden. He convinced Eve, he was convincing. He was a liar. Stop listening to that same old lie.

2. Exodus does not tell us how long God took to create the universe; rather it tells us that God made three things in six days--the heavens, earth and sea, and in the remaining three days, he populated these three realms.

Sounds like Sailhammer is trying to merge gap theory and the Framework. Two wrongs don't make a right.

The question is why don't you want to believe what Jesus Christ told us about His work in creating all things.

[Sigh] In other words, "taking him at his word" requires the young earth reading of Genesis 1. But that is precisely the point in question, viz, what "his word" really is saying at this point.

Sailhammer and those who think he may be on to something are saying that it is you who aren't taking him at his word, because you're imposing upon the text a number of unjustifiable assumptions about what the text is really saying.

In other words, you're coming to the text with a tradition. And if you truly do subscribe to the WCF, then you must examine those traditions to see if they are in fact biblical.

That said, I take issue with the following: >> as long as you continue to reject 6x24 creation as taught in Genesis and Exodus 20:11...<<

I do not, repeat, do not, reject 6 X 24 hour days. As I said in the OP, I'm not a day-age creationist and I think that approach is wrong-headed.

But what I am saying is that the 24 days are not describing the reshit (Genesis 1:1) but rather the eretz (Genesis 1:2-2:4) and that these were 24-hour, solar days, in which God arranged and populated a particular land that he long ago created at time called "the beginning."

Clearly you haven't been reading what's been actually said thus far; rather you seem to be reacting in a rather knee-jerk faction to what you perceive to be an attack on your tradition, namely, young-earth creationism.

I actually have been paying attention to what you're saying. I reject it because it is not a valid way to read Gen 1.

I will repeat. It's not only Genesis 1, but Exodus 20:11 that bounds the entire time span from b'reshit to God's resting at 6 days.

Exodus 20:11 includes all the time from absolute 0 on the clock with regard to creation, because it speaks of the heaven, the earth the sea and all that in them is. Your basic argument is "Yeah, hath God said?"

I know this might possibly be mocked by old Earthers, but the recent discoveries of red blood cells and other similar things in dinosaur bones kind of makes it hard to continue to say they lived 65,000,000 years ago. If the age of dinosaurs is debunked by science, and if evolution theory is debunked by science, you really no longer need a billions of years old Earth. Of course you need to accept supernaturalism and catastrophism and all that...

I have read that link you posted from Kulikovsy/Answers in Genesis and have compared it to Genesis Unbound. I decided to reply to Kulikovsky's review, point by point.

In the main, I found that he tends to major on Sailhamer's minor points, while either ignoring or conceding his major points. He is also given to misrepresentation and sometimes simply gets his facts wrong.

But perhaps the most telling problem is that his own tradition of young-earth creationism colors his entire reading of Sailhamer such that it is clear from the outset that Genesis Unbound is not going to get a fair hearing from AIG.

If you're interested in my critique of their critique, here's the link:

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